Benny Goodman and His Orchestra

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Benny Goodman and His Orchestra was the big band of the clarinettist Benny Goodman, who earned the nickname King of Swing. Goodman was born in 1909 in Chicago, the son of poor Jewish immigrants. At ten he was given a clarinet at free music lessons in a synagogue. He learned from the New Orleans clarinettists who played in Chicago and was already playing in bands at fourteen. Later he worked in New York as a studio musician.

Music and breakthrough

In 1934 he put together an orchestra of his own. The band played arrangements by Fletcher Henderson, who had had to disband his own Black orchestra. On 21 August 1935 the orchestra went down a storm at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. The audience cheered the fast, swinging arrangements, and that evening is often seen as the beginning of the swing era. The music was dance music for young people: horn sections bouncing riffs back and forth, a driving drummer in Gene Krupa and solos from Goodman's clear clarinet. The Carnegie Hall concert in 1938 gave jazz a place in the stately concert hall.

Influence

In a time of racial segregation Goodman played in his small groups with Black musicians, such as the pianist Teddy Wilson. In 1939 the guitarist Charlie Christian joined. Goodman at first would have nothing to do with an electric guitar, but Christian convinced him on stage. In two years Christian made the electric guitar a fully fledged jazz instrument. The orchestra launched the careers of many jazz musicians.

Listening

• 
  Solo Flight · Benny Goodman and His Orchestra met Charlie Christian, 1941
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1948Benny Goodman and His Orchestra and Sextet; Vocals by Peggy Lee
• 19521937-38 Jazz Concert No. 2
• 1960Happy Session
• 1990The Benny Goodman Story: Music Recorded for the Soundtrack of the Universal-International Motion Picture (soundtrack)
• ?1937/38 Jazz Concert No. 2, Vol. 1

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 9: The Instrument^NL Reader

See also

• Swing and big band